December 4, 2008

Our Life in Pictures

I've been promising some pictures of life as we know it now, so here are a few glimpses. Because I'm ever mindful of the dial-up blog readers, I'll put these photos on the next page. Just click below to see what we've been up to lately.This home is the regular spot of Wednesday night services. We walked through a cow pasture and over this creek to get to it. In the top picture, the lady on the left is the lady of the home, in the pink shirt. Dan is beside her in the jersey, and my mom in on the right. It's hard to see in this small picture, but to the left of the lady is a bed. I've learned that lots of people in the country sleep outside because of the heat. Crossing the creek: my mom, me, Gwen (Dan's wife), and Saul (the evangelist)

This is our new mode of transportation. Four wheel drive so that we can get in and out of our long dirt roads in the rain. Jump seats in the back so that we can carry more than the four of us (I'm surprised at how many times I've already said, "Thank God we have the jump seats!") On a normal day, it does not look all shiny like this. It is covered in orange dust. It's a 90's decade Mitsubishi Montero, the most common vehicle in Paraguay. Far in the background you can see one of the buildings of the camp. This is the view from our front door.

A very hard, very large antbed near the Itaipu Dam (see below), just about as tall as my dad. It's not uncommon at all to see them this size, dotting the landscape all over the cow fields. The ants don't come out of them very often at all, and I'm told they aren't bothersome when they do. They come out to eat (From looking at the size of the antbed, I'm thinking they could eat a cow or something....)

We were visiting the Itaipu Dam, at the border of Brazil and Paraguay. It's quite an interesting story of how the two countries made a deal in the 70's to build this HUGE (so big it's one of the 7 Wonders of the Modern World) hydroelectric power plant, with Brazil providing all the financing and Paraguay the labor. Paraguay only needs a very small percentage of the power produced, to handle their entire country. Brazil, which is MUCH larger, uses the rest. Paraguay sells them their portion at an extremely reduced rate, as part of the bargain they struck so that Brazil would finance the dam's construction. In several more years, the contract expires and Paraguay will receive market rate for the electricity they sell to Brazil. However, some of the Paraguayans are unhappy about this "injustice" in their eyes, and there were groups out there picketing when we visited. We drove across the top of the dam and this picture was actually taken from the Brazilian side.